This is the last weekend before the holidays roll in, so get out and enjoy Baristaville!

Tomorrow night, Friday, December 16, it’s all about Window Wonderland! With more than a dozen downtown stores participating, and all kinds of entertainment lined up, the evening will offer you the most fun you ever had shopping local. Alan of the Porchistas is going to play a few songs. The Salvation Army Band will be on hand and Jazz House Kids Student Ensemble will provide jazz standards and holiday cheer in the atrium of the Clairidge. Plus, the same life-size baby T-Rex that wowed football fans at Giants Stadium last Sunday will be walking the streets of Montclair with a Santa hat, window shopping himself. He’s the mascot of Bloomfield-based Field Station:Dinosaurs, which opens in Secaucus next May. In addition to judging the windows, enjoying the music and the dino, many of the stores will have special treats. Check our Window Wonderland page for the 411 on the 07042 event.

Window Wonderland

Friday, December 16 from 7 pm – 9 pm

Montclair Center, 07042

Free to attend

Myrna Marcarian of Ruby on The Vine

After you’ve taken in the festivities at Montclair Center, head over to Tierney’s for beer, awesome burgers and a show featuring three veteran bands still actively recording and performing. Ruby on the Vine is a Montclair band formed by Myrna Marcarian and Geoff Feinberg. Formed in the late 1990s, ROTV is led by Ms. Marcarian, who, from 1980 to 1986, was co-leader of the band, Human Switchboard. Glenn Mercer is the lead singer/guitarist/composer of the recently reunited influential, Hoboken-based, alternative band, The Feelies. Their debut album, Crazy Rhythms, was voted 49 in the top 100 albums of the 80s by Rolling Stone magazine and chosen by Spin Magazine as 49 of the best Alternative records of all time. Formed in Orange County NY in 1994, The Shrubs have fused garage pop with alien poetics. They performed and recorded with Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Glenn Mercer (The Feelies), Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams and folk legend Pete Seeger. The bands are collecting gently used coats for those in needs.

Ruby on The Vine, Glenn Mercer and The Shrubs Show

Friday, December 16 at 9 pm

Tierney’s Tavern, 136-138 Valley Road, Montclair, NJ, 07042

$10 cover

On Saturday night, party with The Porchistas! For the the third year in a row Montclair’s The Porchistas are co-hosting The DLV Lounge Christmas & Holiday Party along with George Marable, the owner of the DLV for 42 years. This year’s music lineup includes The Porchistas, and Brooklyn’s Kagero (Japanese Gypsy Rock), Montclair’s Oxygen Box (reggae, rock, soul), and Montclair’s Rainbow Fresh (pop, Rock,70’s style Funk). There will be drink specials & a BBQ style menu and a Take Your Picture With Santa Booth.

The DLV Lounge Christmas & Holiday Party with The Porchistas & More

Saturday, December 17 from 8 pm – 2 am

The DLV Lounge, 300 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07042

The Dining Room, The Ballantine House at Christmas

Visit Newark Museum‘s Ballantine House and step back in time to Christmases long ago. The 1885 Ballantine House offers visitors a taste of how Christmas was celebrated in 19th century Victorian Newark, as English, German and Dutch holiday traditions merged into something not so very different from the way the holiday is celebrated in America today. From the Christmas tree (a German tradition) to the wooden shoes by the hearth (a Dutch tradition) to the stockings on the chimney and plum pudding in the dining room (English traditions), visitors can get a sense of how Christmas evolved into a home-based secular holiday in the nineteenth century, linked to but distinct from the religious commemoration that was celebrated in church. Peek at a lavish “open house” tea, held on Christmas Eve in 1891, featuring a Christmas tree decorated with the Museum’s collection of Victorian ornaments. See the family’s stockings hung by the fireplace in the library, an image popularized in the 1822 children’s book, A Visit from St. Nicholas (otherwise known as The Night Before Christmas). Storybook panels in the rooms also allow visitors to “eavesdrop” on the servants as they discuss their own holiday plans and talk about the variety of guests expected to attend the Open House. Observe a Christmas dinner set for the family in the ornate mahogany-paneled dining room, complete with party favors and a splendid banquet inspired by Victorian cookbooks. Recipes for some of these dishes will be available to take home.

Continue your Victorian Christmas at The Kip’s Castle Park Conservancy. An Afternoon Tea at Kip’s Castle takes place on Sunday, December 18. Due to the tremendous response and the original 2 pm event selling out, they have announced a second seating at 4 pm. You’ll return to the elegance of a Victorian Christmas at this formal tea, served on white linen and china with an assortment of scones and jam, tea sandwiches, cakes, mini quiches, and petit fours.Read more about Kip’s Castle and this event on MyVeronaNJ.com.

Holiday Tea at Kip’s Castle

Sunday, December 18 at 4 pm

Kip’s Castle, 22 Crestmont Road, Verona

Reservations are required and space is limited. Adults are $30; Children under 12 are $15. Call 973-239-1390 or email to reserve your table.

Annie Kozuch

Enjoy Music at The Mansion at Oakeside Bloomfield Cultural Center. This week’s performers will be singer Annie Kozuch, pianist Carolyn Enger and Broadway performer Rosemary Loar. Carolyn Enger has delivered her distinctly personal concerts at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Tenri Cultural Center. Ms. Enger’s debut album, In Evening Air includes music of Beethoven, Scriabin, Hanson, Copland, Rorem, and Liebermann. Rosemary Loar‘s Broadway credits include You Can’t Take It With You, CATS (Grizabella), Chess, Sunset Boulevard and Once Upon A Mattress. Rosemary was seen in the HBO Show Stoppers starring Mary Martin and Ethel Merman. She has five CD’s available on iTunes. Singer Annie Kozuch has been a featured soloist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Her other Broadway Pops performances include the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Tokyo City Symphony Orchestra and an Evening of Jazz at the Natchez Opera Festival.

Tickets are$10 and are available at the door or by calling 973.429.0960 to make reservations. Seating begins at 2:30pm. Light refreshments will be served.

Celebrate Hanukkah! Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange will host ChanukahMania, a morning of family fun with activities for all ages. The Jewish Cultural School & Society (JCSS) in Maplewood the sole “secular synagogue” serving Essex, Union, Passaic and Bergen counties, invites you to celebrate Chanukah with them. There will be a potluck, songs, stories, crafts and mo

Check out the list of these Hanukkah events and find even more on Barista Kids.

To see what else is going on in Baristaville, make sure to check our calendar.

Featured Comment

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But it does have good prices, and it accepts WIC transactions.